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Swango Blues News!!! 12/25/09 Swango
classes for tango dancers with Chris(Topher) Maraffi and Lynne Caryl coming
in 2010 to |
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Photo:
digitalallusion.com
Chris' Other Links:
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Chris Maraffi’s Swango Blues Dance Alchemy
Swango Blues is both a description of what I have been doing on the dance floor for a number of years, and the reflexive goal for where I want to go with my dance style in the future. It is based on the freedom to be creative in your dancing, choosing how much you want to add of any one particular style to each dance. Some dances I may add more Argentine Tango, while others may end up having more West Coast Swing, Lindy Hop, or Blues added to them. But as a general technique, I believe if you comingle these dances over time in a relaxed way, they will create a new kind of dancing that is more exciting and fun than any one particular dance style, and make you a better overall dancer in the process. I am taking an iterative approach to developing this fusion style, by finding fundamental connection points and modifying the dances slightly to make them fit together better. Swango Blues v.1 has been well documented on my YouTube channel, with demos by me and my previous teaching partner Jessica, and almost two hours of free instructional videos. At that point in Orlando I was experimenting with fusing some simple movements from Tango Nuevo with fundamental movements of West Coast Swing and Smooth Lindy Hop, while also adding a little Blues on the side. We danced that style to many different kinds of music, including Blues, Funk, Soul, and Alternative. Some movements worked and I kept them; others didn’t and I dropped them. Because my partner was primarily a Lindy Hop dancer, we had a strong Lindy influence in that version. Today I live in Santa Cruz and I have been busy developing Swango Blues v.2, which is a much more complete and complex version of Swango. The Blues is still there, but because Argentine Tango and West Coast Swing are the most popular dances in the area (plus Salsa, which is also working into the mix)… I am focusing more on the Swango aspect of the style. There is a smooth elasticity and improvisation to both of these dances that makes them more than compatible. Whips flow into colgadas which flow into underarm turns which flow into ganchos, etc. All the movements can be done mostly in closed position, in which case it looks like Tango Nuevo with Swing movements embedded throughout, or done mostly in open position in which case it looks like West Coast Swing with Tango movements embedded throughout. My new teaching partner Lynne Caryl and I have started teaching workshops and classes in the Santa Cruz area for the Argentine Tango and West Coast Swing community. I will be posting some YouTube demos of our dancing Swango Blues v.2 soon, so stay tuned... Chris Maraffi (01/17/10).
Here is a video of Jessica and I dancing at Underground Swing in Orlando:
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Here is a preview video of the DVD now available on YouTube:
Go to my SwangoBlues YouTube page to watch more...
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